


Show Me the Ropes

by DoneInLove



Series: Buddie First Kiss Week 2020 [2]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Buddie First Kiss Week 2020, FKW, First Kiss, Kissing, M/M, Mixed Martial Arts, No actual sexual acts, Talk of Eddie's street fighting, UFC Fight, past street fighting, slightly NSFW kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:21:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24567616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoneInLove/pseuds/DoneInLove
Summary: Buck gets tickets to a UFC fight and invites Eddie, despite some concerns.Eddie processes some things and shows Buck a couple moves from his pre-street fighting MMA days.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Series: Buddie First Kiss Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771825
Comments: 4
Kudos: 136





	Show Me the Ropes

**Author's Note:**

> R.I.P. to me ever getting anything done on time.   
> Here's a combination of Days 3 and 5 for First Kiss Week, not being posted on either of those days, whoops. 
> 
> Day 3: After a Fight  
> Day 5: Hot and Sexy
> 
> (Also very un-beta'd, apologies ahead of time and if anything is wrong, feel free to point it out)

“Eddie, are you sure you’re okay with this? You don’t have to come. I’m sure I can find someone else that would want to come with me.”

Buck was sitting across from Eddie at the counter of the fire station kitchen, the two of them sharing a plate of haphazardly thrown together nachos between them. 

Eddie grabbed for another chip and scooped up some of the leftover chicken and half melted shredded cheese, popping it into his mouth and chewing quickly. “Why wouldn’t I be okay with it? I think we’d have a great time.”

As Eddie reached for another chip, he saw that Buck actually looked shy in response, almost sinking into himself for a moment, playing with his fingertips like he did when he was nervous. He shrugged halfheartedly and muttered, “You know, cuz of your whole _thing_ during the lawsuit crap. I didn’t want this to be like a trigger or anything.”

Eddie paused, chip partway to his mouth, and stared at Buck like he was waiting for the punchline. He let the chip drop back onto the plate and tried to catch buck’s averted eyes. When he couldn’t, Eddie reached out his hand to cover Buck’s, pulling his attention back. “Hey, I’ll be fine. Part of the reason I started the street fighting was because I’ve done MMA before. I’ve seen, and even been a part of, a crapton of legitimate matches way before I went off the rails like that. Seeing another match isn’t going to be a trigger and make me go pick up street fighting again. If anything, it might make me want to join a gym again and get back into MMA, but that’d be way different than that street shit. I have no intentions of ever doing that again. You’ve got nothing to worry about there.”

Buck looked significantly more relieved at hearing Eddie say that. He no longer seemed like he was trying to shrink in on himself, with his back straightened again, and the shy, hesitant expression on his face fading back into one of excitement. “Yeah? Good, that makes me feel so much better. I know these tickets just got thrown at me last minute, but I was really hoping you’d want to come with me and the last thing I wanted was to make things weird for you.”

“Nah, c’mon man, you get two free tickets to an UFC fight and ask me to come? I’m there. No doubt.”

\- - - 

The entire day leading up to the fight, Eddie’s traitorous brain replayed that conversation on repeat and tried to glean some kind of deeper meaning from it than likely existed. He couldn’t help but think about the way Buck hesitated when he brought up the street fighting. Or how he equated it with the lawsuit, as if that was the only reason Eddie needed an outlet like he did. It made Eddie think that Buck still blamed himself for everything that happened. Even if he didn’t want to admit it, there was obviously still a part of him that was punishing himself for the lawsuit. There was a part of Buck that hadn’t forgiven himself for it and thought he was still in need of retribution. Eddie knew he needed to reassure Buck that that wasn’t actually the case, but he wasn’t sure where to even begin. 

Eddie also didn’t know what to think about the part where Buck was looking out for Eddie’s best interests on things Eddie hadn’t even entertained the idea of. Him getting triggered for his street fighting habit? That hadn’t even crossed Eddie’s mind, though it probably should have. He knew, even if he didn’t like to admit it, that he had gotten a little addicted to it all. It was different from when he did organized, legitimate fights in a ring. There was a certain thrill of the illegality of it, which Eddie certainly didn’t want to acknowledge, and the no holds barred attitude of the fights let him disconnect his racing mind and give his control over to his base instincts, rather than having to worry about regulations and penalties. 

So sure, Eddie found himself falling down a rabbit hole of adrenaline and hefty envelopes of prize money that left him feeling even more out of sorts when he went too long without a fight. He knew what that meant; he knew those were obvious signs of someone slowly losing their control to an addiction. So he knew, theoretically, now that he was no longer engaging in the addictive activities, all it would take is a couple of missteps to pull him right back into that mindset. He knew it, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. He could admit that he _had_ a problem, as in, in the past, but he didn’t want to think that it could still be inside of him. Eddie didn’t want to admit to himself that it wasn’t over just because he isn’t going down to the junkyard or seeking out another abandoned factory with a makeshift ring stained with blood. 

Eddie didn’t know what kind of things might trigger him, or if he even wanted to use that word to describe it, but he knew that there had to be something. He knew that Buck had the right idea to be concerned for Eddie’s mental state, but he also knew that he was right when he told Buck he would be fine to go with him. 

He tried to think about what set him on that path in the first place, as a way to see if he could pin down anything that might trigger another mental collapse like had happened before. 

It wasn’t the lawsuit that pushed him in that direction, despite what Buck seemed to think. It wasn’t even Shannon’s death or Christopher’s increasingly frequent nightmares. Not the added stress of being down one of their best men at work, or even the extra pressure his parents were throwing his way regarding Christopher’s well being after all the trauma he’d experienced. And it hurt, but it wasn’t even that he couldn’t talk to his best friend anymore, or that Christopher called out for Buck in his sleep sometimes and Eddie couldn’t do anything about it but hold his hurting son and comfort him the best he could. 

No, it wasn’t because of one single thing that sent Eddie barreling over the edge of his own mental desperation and rage; it was all of it combined. It was everything that Eddie had found himself dealing with emotionally, physically, and mentally, with some of the strongest supports in his rapidly crumbling foundation removed suddenly and without ceremony. 

So how could Eddie avoid falling into those same trappings again, to make sure he never heeded to the siren’s call that street fighting was to him? He didn’t hear that call anymore, as far as he could recognize, but he knew he wasn’t completely deaf to it. And Buck seemed to see it as well. 

That’s what really made Eddie’s heart clench. The idea that his best friend could see something in him that he didn’t even want to think about, let alone examine; it was daunting. It opened Eddie’s eyes to things that had been passing by him the entire time he’d known Buck, but that he was too stubborn to look at. Eddie knew that he and Buck needed to talk about Buck finally forgiving himself for things he still held on to that no one else did, but he also knew that they needed to have a somehow even deeper conversation. 

Eddie just wasn’t sure if he was ready for that conversation yet. 

By the time Buck’s jeep pulled into the driveway, Eddie had paced a ditch into the carpet in front of his closet mirror, or so it felt like to him. He couldn’t decide on the right outfit, or which way to style his hair, or how he would even greet Buck, which made no sense, because he’s always greeted Buck the same way when they were getting ready to do something together. 

“Hey man, you ready?” he called out as Buck let himself into the house. Eddie didn’t know why he was so on edge that night, or, well no, that was a lie Eddie was trying to tell himself. He knew why he was acting the way he was, and it had nothing to do with the upcoming fight. Eddie was nervous. He was actually nervous of going out with Buck like they’d done plenty of times before and he really didn’t know what to do with that feeling. 

“Hell yeah, this is gonna be great,” Buck answered, all smiles as Eddie walked up to him and pulled him by the hand into a quick embrace, clapping him on the back as he stepped back. “I’ve never been to an MMA match before, or even really watched any UFC fights on TV or anything, so you might have to show me the ropes once we get there.”

“Was that supposed to be a pun?” Eddie asked, shooting Buck an exasperated look. “Because there are no ropes in MMA. That’s boxing.”

“Uh…” Buck took in Eddie’s expression and laughed. “Nope, definitely not a pun.” 

Eddie chuckled and nodded. He tried to keep as much fondness as possible out of his voice when he replied, “Yeah, sure.”

“That just proved my point that I barely know what we’re going to see tonight, so I am entirely following your lead from now on out,” Buck said, cheeks slightly reddened in embarrassment, if Eddie had to guess. He couldn’t help but think briefly of other reasons his cheeks might flush like that and if he might get to see those soon as well. 

“Well then,” Eddie started, shaking those kinds of thoughts from his head. He held his hand back out in an exaggerated motion for Buck’s own hand, and said sarcastically, in a terrible accent, “Come with me if you want to live.”

Buck threw his head back in laughter but reached his hand out anyways. “And you thought _my_ Terminator impression was bad.”

\- - - 

Buck was an excited, rambling mess by the time Eddie had unlocked his front door and they were kicking their shoes off in the entryway. “Holy shit dude! I am so glad Maddie’s coworker’s husband didn’t want those tickets. That was so fucking awesome! I’ve seen clips of that kinda stuff before and, y’know, seen movies and stuff, but I didn’t realize how freaking cool that would be in real life. And this was the real shit, too, huh? UFC is on a whole different level than what I’d seen before. Oh my god thank you so much for coming with me, this was so freaking awesome.”

Eddie loved when Buck got like that; where he couldn’t stop himself from talking until he said everything he wanted to say. Being a man of few words more often than not, Eddie found comfort in being around someone who had no qualms toward speaking their mind, no matter what was on it. It was kind of like Buck was always there to fill the quiet spaces Eddie sometimes let linger uncomfortably; he balanced him out, almost. Eddie would always be grateful for it. He’d been smiling softly ever since Buck started talking about the matches they’d watched on their drive back from the arena, and the expression hadn’t faded one bit. 

In what seemed like purely automatic synchrony, Buck and Eddie moved around each other in the kitchen, Buck retrieving and making a bag of popcorn as he talked, Eddie getting two beers out of the fridge and popping the caps off both, smile still on his face, and the two of the moving seamlessly together with their spoils in hand to the living room where they took up residence on the couch. 

Once it seemed like Buck had exhausted himself of everything he wanted to say, Eddie took a handful of popcorn and threw the TV remote to Buck before responding. 

“I think I oughta buy Maddie’s coworker’s whoever a fruit basket or something. Those seats were ridiculous. And you don’t have to thank me for coming; I should be thanking you for inviting me.”

“Well yeah, of course Eds.” Buck shrugged and took a drink from his beer, idly flipping through the main page of Netflix as they spoke. “You’re the first person I thought of. Glad you wanted to go with.”

‘ _I’d go with you to anything you asked me to,’_ Eddie thought dreamily before he could catch himself. The last thing he wanted to do was mess things up between them because he couldn’t get his feelings in check enough to figure out what to do with them. Instead of going anywhere near those kinds of thoughts, Eddie changed the subject slightly. “Yeah, that definitely makes me miss my old gym back in El Paso. We were nowhere near UFC level, but we had a good group of guys. Had a pretty good record of wins between us all.”

Buck had settled on some comedy procedural they’d both seen before, thankfully on the same page as Eddie about just having something on for background noise, and angled his body toward Eddie’s on the couch. He took another long drag from his beer and Eddie tried not to watch his throat constrict or the way his fingers curled around the beer bottle. When he pulled the bottle away, a slight smirk was on his face, and if Eddie were a more paranoid man, he might have thought Buck knew what he was thinking. Eddie took a drink of his own and tried to make it look as natural as possible. 

“I betcha if I learned a thing or two more about MMA, you and I could put on a good show. Hell, I could probably give you a run for your money as is.”

Eddie chuckled, setting his beer down on the coffee table. “Oh yeah? Listen, Buck, there’s a lot more to it than size and strength.” 

“You don’t think I have what it takes?” Buck asked, his birthmark hitching up toward his hairline as he cocked his eyebrow in a challenging stare. 

“I didn’t say that, not exactly. I just don’t think you realize everything that goes into it. It takes a lot more than brute strength to get the better of someone in the octagon.”

“Care to give me a demonstration?”

“You want - what, right now?” Eddie tossed his head back in laughter at the idea. “We’re missing quite a few key things for that. Like, everything, actually.”

“Oh come on, we can scootch the couch and coffee table over a bit and there’d be plenty of room for you to show me a couple moves.” 

“No, no way Buck.” Eddie shook his head and picked his beer back up for another drink. “I don’t feel like replacing the TV when we inevitably break it doing something stupid.”

“Alright, fine, not in here. You’ve got a perfectly good back yard with nice soft grass that’s just calling our name.”

Eddie met Buck’s unwavering gaze with a serious look. “You’re not gonna give this up, are you?”

Buck’s smile was mischievous as he shook his head. “Nope.”

Eddie groaned and set his beer back down, while Buck laughed in glee at his win. “Fine. I’ll show you two moves. But we’re not going to want to be in jeans for this, and we definitely need to stretch first.”

“Hah!” Buck yelled, grinning from ear to ear as he hopped off the couch and followed Eddie into his bedroom. 

After borrowing a pair of basketball shorts and doing a set of warm up stretches with Eddie, Buck was leading the way out into Eddie’s backyard with a skip in his step, far more excited than Eddie thought he’d be at the prospect of getting his ass handed to him. 

They found a good patch of grass without any rocks or dips in the ground they could roll an ankle in and Eddie started by coaching Buck through the general stance he’d want to hold himself in throughout a match, as long as he was on his feet. 

“Alright, I’m not going to show you any hits or kicks, but I’ll show you a couple moves that are more based in wrestling that work for pinning your opponent to the mat. I’m going to go step by step at first, then I’m going to do it to you at full speed so you can see what it looks like, then I want you to try it on me and I’ll see if I can get back to my feet. Sound good?”

Buck just nodded, holding his hands out in front of him in the way Eddie had shown him. The excitement was gone from his face as he shifted into a seriousness Eddie wasn’t sure was going to surface. He didn’t know going into that if Buck was going to treat it like he was learning a fun new trick, or if he would treat it with the same respect he did to new moves and techniques he learned for the job. It turned out to be the latter of the two. Buck was in full-on concentration mode as Eddie approached him and walked him through the move slowly. 

Eddie felt a familiar kind of mental quietness come over him as he talked Buck through one process for taking an opponent down to the mat. He hadn’t done any legitimate fighting since moving to Los Angeles, and while he felt similar things flow through him during his time street fighting, he was doing it for different reasons and looking for different sensations. Being able to feel that peace again after so long without a healthy way to achieve it made Eddie realize he was keeping himself from a coping mechanism that might actually have worked for him all along if he had actually looked for it. When Lena had introduced him to the junkyard fights, he thought he needed the break from regulation, the fight to the bitter end mentality, for him to be able to get out of his head like he wanted. Eddie realized that night in his back yard that he’d never needed that in the way he thought.

Once Eddie was through with all steps of the first move he planned on showing that night, he backed up and nodded curtly at Buck, who sent the same gesture back at him. Eddie gave him no more warning than that and he was moving on Buck like the other man knew what to expect, easily getting his arms around him and shifting his weight just so, pulling, shifting, and pinning Buck to the ground in less than a second. 

Even though Buck himself did next to nothing, his chest heaved slightly underneath Eddie and he stared up at him, eyes wide, blue being taken over by the black of his blown pupils. Eddie shook his head a little and untangled his arms so he could stand back up. He offered his hand down for Buck to take and tried not to think of other situations he might see Bucks pupils so wide. He helped Buck onto his feet and nodded at him. “You good?”

Buck took a deep breath but nodded right back. “Yeah, good. That was intense, is all. But I think I can do that.”

Eddie watched as Buck resumed his stance and chuckled. “If you say so. Let’s give it a shot. Remember, if you land it, I’m going to try a countermove to get back up. Be prepared for that.”

“Got it.” 

Eddie took a couple steps back and readied himself for the hit that was to come. He knew Buck had some kind of history with Navy SEAL training, but it wasn’t something the other man often talked about, so Eddie had no way of knowing what, if any, kind of take-down training Buck might have experience with. With that uncertainty, Eddie didn’t know whether he thought Buck would be able to pin him on the first try or not. He was about as unprepared for Buck coming at him as Buck likely was the other way around. 

It seemed longer than it probably was for Buck to finally make his move, and he came at Eddie with a surprising level of skill, almost perfectly mirroring the technique Eddie taught him only minutes prior, getting Eddie’s legs out from underneath of him and spun around, using his leverage to pin Eddie to the soft ground with unsurprising force. Eddie, having been in that position many times before, wrapped his legs around Buck’s waist and pulled himself up so that his shoulders were the only thing on the ground, using his arms and pelvis to push and pull at Buck enough for him to lose his grip on the ground with his feet and be slammed onto his back next to where he’d pinned Eddie. 

Normally, that would be when Eddie’s opponent would try to gain their own leverage back in some other way, and Eddie wouldn’t dream of releasing his grip, but it wasn’t like normal. Buck let his arms and legs starfish out on either side of him as he caught his breath. Eddie pulled his arms out from behind Buck, but couldn’t bring himself to do anything other than bracket his hands by Buck’s head on the ground, still leaning over him. Again, Buck’s chest was heaving with deep breaths and Buck was looking up into Eddie’s eyes with purpose. Eddie didn’t know what that purpose was, but he could see it in the hard set of his brow and the solidness of those barely-blue ringed pupils boring into his own. 

Before Eddie had a chance to process his own complicated feelings that a look like that from Buck brought him, hands were softly cradling his face and Buck was huffing out a small laugh, surging up to press his lips to Eddie’s in a firm kiss. Eddie just barely pulled himself together in time to kiss back before Buck pulled away. 

The softest of smiles graced Eddie’s face as he looked down at Buck fondly. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I, uh, I hope that was okay. It’s just, I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time now, and honestly you pinning me like this was ridiculously hot, and I didn’t really know how to control myself anymore because you drive me crazy in the best ways possible Eddie, and I just need you to know -”

Normally, Eddie would have let him ramble, but like he’d established, that was not a normal night. 

Eddie dropped down to his forearms and cut off Buck’s words with another kiss, somehow both softer and deeper than the first. He pulled back just enough to say, “You don’t have to control yourself around me anymore babe. I’m here, and I’m yours.”

He didn’t think it was possible, but somehow Buck’s pupils dilated even further, until his irises were almost entirely black, a hungry gaze focused fully on Eddie. “Yeah?” he asked breathily, trailing his hands down to grip at the back of Eddie’s neck. 

Eddie answered with a kiss, pushing everything he felt that he didn’t know how to articulate into his lips, and he only hoped Buck’s lips knew how to translate the message. 

As Eddie’s mouth moved against Buck’s in a different kind of back and forth than their bodies were just doing, he took advantage of his position straddling Buck’s hips and ground himself down, his own rapidly growing dick brushing against the prominent length he felt underneath of him. Eddie groaned into the kiss as Buck gasped, not expecting the movement, and hissed out, “Shit Eddie.”

Eddie leaned his head down to mouth at Buck’s neck and whispered against the skin, “This okay?”

Buck just nodded and rolled his head to the side to give Eddie more access. “Very okay. More than okay.” He left one hand at the nape of Eddie’s neck, halfheartedly grasping at his short hairs there, and trailed the other across his shoulder, down his side, and to his hip, where he gripped hard, urging Eddie to move against him again. And who was Eddie to deny him such a thing?

Eddie knew that they really needed to talk about what was happening and what that meant for them, but he also knew that his mind was in no place to do so at that point, and he doubted that Buck’s was either. They weren’t in danger of hurting themselves or anyone else, so the need for talking wasn’t urgent as far as Eddie was concerned. There would be plenty of time for conversations in the morning. Right then, it was time for kissing. 

**Author's Note:**

> I know the "after a fight" prompt was probably meant in a different way, but I just couldn't get this idea out of my head once it popped in, so I ran with it. 
> 
> Also I know like 0% of anything about UFC and/or MMA, and basically googled anything I put in here.   
> Aaand the way that Eddie counter-moves against Buck's pin is roughly based off of a couple of Ryan Guzman's old MMA fights I watched on youtube, but again, I know nothing about these moves, so if I described anything wildly wrong please let me know lol
> 
> Lastly, I absolutely love hearing from you lovelies and just light up any time I get a notification for Kudos/comments. Y'all are amazing <3


End file.
